Fire and Brimstone

Step forward into the light, calls the sound.  A blast of trumpet, a musical scream that wakes everyone up.

We all get up from our beds and graves.

We look at our hands and the sky and the mist and shiver in the cold.  I wish for the boatman but he isn't coming, not this time.  Too busy.  A blast of light overhead.  Fire.  Brimstone.  I taste bile in my mouth.  My perfect hatred of fire and brimstone, of shouting and screaming, men being dragged out and thrown into the street makes me bristle with anger.

Everyone gets up.  Even I hear the call.  They all move across the misty ground, deader than doornails, towards the light.  I don't move.  Someone comes up behind me.  I don't bother looking to see who it is.

"I'm not going so leave me alone."

I feel a hand on my shoulder, a gentle squeeze that makes me start then a gauzy, sheer wisp of whiteness brushes past me.  "I'm not going," I say again as I watch those raptured souls move around me.  They are all taking deliberate steps, floating over the ground.  After a while I am alone.  Sitting in my own grave, the ground a grayish blue, the light fading in the distance.  The fire in the sky had turned to black, charred and smoking.

I get up and walk in the opposite direction towards darkness.  Though the light is fading, I'm certain I can create my own as I go along.